This book shows how to work successfully with emotional and behavioral problems rooted in deficient early attachments. In particular, it addresses the emotional difficulties of many of the foster and adopted children living in our country who are unable to form secure attachments. Traditional interventions, which do not teach parents how to successfully engage the child, frequently do not provide the means by which the seriously damaged child can form the secure attachment that underlies behavioral change. Dr. Daniel Hughes maps out a treatment plan designed to help the child begin to experience and accept, from both the therapist and the parents, affective attunement that he or she should have received in the first few years of life. Hughes' approach includes: —Using foster and adopted parents as co-therapists —Teaching differentiation between old and new parents —Overcoming the perception of discipline as abusive —Framing misbehavior, discipline, conflicts, and parental authority as important aspects of a child's learning to trust. All children, at the core of their beings, need to be attached to someone who considers them to be very special and who is committed to providing for their ongoing care. Children who lose their birth parents desperately need such a relationship if they are to heal and grow. This book shows therapists how to facilitate this crucial bond. A Jason Aronson Book

For those treating attachment disordered children with traditional child psychotherapy, this book will compel a reexamination of that approach and lead the way to a decidedly more effective treatment. Therapists struggling to help these children will findcountless new insights and concrete examples of how to be successful instead of frustrated in their work. An experienced, gifted, and innovative therapist and teacher, Dan Hughes takes the reader through a primer in attachment theory and reactive attachment disorders in maltreated children, through the theoretical principles and actual techniques employed in therapy, four illustrative case vignettes, and a discussion of how to educate, assist, and support the parents of poorly attached children... -- Paul D. Goodman
Dr. Hughes's deeply insightful book provides professionals as well as parents with a comprehensive understanding of the issues and of the types of interventions that succeed in resolving them. The scope of this brilliant work extends beyond the disturbances of foster and adoptive children. If all children were treated in the way Dr. Hughes describes, with his compassion, humanity, humor, and depth of understanding, there would be better outcomes. Even for therapists who do not practice in this manner, their grasp of a child's development and their approach to their young patients will be greatly enhanced by Dr. Hughes' theoretical framework of attunement and engagement... -- Martha G. Welch

Daniel Hughes, Ph.D., received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Ohio University. For over a decade he was the coordinator of children's services at Kennebec Valley Mental Health Center and also worked at Colby College Counseling Services. He is in private practice in Waterville, Maine, where he has contracts with foster care agencies.